Whether she's knocking down sleazy old wheelchair-bound men or hatching schemes as Marty's reluctant
partner in crime, Ruth Langmore has the rare ability to drive a scene - and audiences have
fallen in love with the character.
That's all thanks, of course, to the dedication and talent of actor Julia Garner.
Ozark wasn't Garner's first rodeo, and if you feel like you've seen her before, well,
you're probably right.
Here's why Ruth from Ozark looks so familiar.
After appearing in two short films in 2010, Garner was cast in a role in 2011's Martha
Marcy May Marlene, starring Avengers: Endgame's Elizabeth Olsen and American Horror Story's
Sarah Paulson.
The film, about a woman struggling to re-enter society after living in a cult, saw Garner
in a small role as one of the cult members.
Although only about 17 at the time that Martha Marcy May Marlene was released, Julia Garner
nonetheless proved that she could hold her own in a feature production.
It wasn't long before more roles came her way.
Over the next few years, Garner played a cannibal in We Are What We Are, a waitress in Sin City:
A Dame to Kill For, and the friend of a demonically possessed girl in The Last Exorcism: Part
2.
In 2012, Garner snagged a small role in the indie hit The Perks of Being a Wallflower,
based on the book of the same name.
Playing a classmate of the main character, Charlie, Garner's Susan didn't get much screen
time, but definitely shone in the few scenes in which she appeared.
After spending several years landing brief but memorable roles in indie films, Julia
Garner landed a meaty - but downright uncomfortable - role on FX's thriller The Americans.
The show takes place in the Washington D.C. suburbs during the Cold War, and centers on
two KGB spies posing as a regular American family.
The Americans ran for six intense seasons, and during that time it was given the title
of "best show on television" on more than one occasion.
Though she was 21 at the time, Julia Garner portrayed 15-year-old Kimberly Breland, who
gets targeted by secret Soviet agent Philip Jennings in season 3.
Over the course of her ten-episode run, Garner's character led Jennings, and viewers, down
a wholly unsettling road of "will-they-won't they" that left audiences squirming far more
than any of the murders Jennings committed throughout the show.
Speaking with Variety about what led to the decision to cast Julia Garner in the role,
showrunner Joel Fields explained, "It was a hard role to cast.
We were discovering through the casting process what our level of comfort was and what would
be right and wrong.
[...] The truth is as soon as we brought Julia in it felt right - in the sense that it felt
wrong."
Anyone who tuned into The Americans during Kimberly's arc was no doubt forced to agree,
but this was just the beginning of a long path to stardom where Garner was concerned.
And it's worth noting that season 3 was the only season to land a perfect 100 percent
on Rotten Tomatoes.
Coincidence?
Maybe, maybe not.
While engaging in a game of cat and mouse with a Soviet-era spy, Julia Garner also took
some time to play Ramones-obsessed teen Claudia Gunns in the Netflix original series The Get
Down.
First appearing in the Part 1 finale in 2016, Claudia is the rich, privileged daughter of
Herbert Gunns, and her interaction with Zeke in her father's mansion provides a striking
counterpoint to the violence and poverty Zeke is used to seeing.
"First editions, you know.
All my first editions are due at South Bronx Library by lunch on Thursday."
The series, set in the Bronx during the '70s, chronicles the rise of hip-hop and received
plenty of critical acclaim for its gripping narrative and captivating performances.
Claudia showed up again in the Part 2 episode "Unfold Your Own Myth," appearing near the
end in a scene set in her father's boardroom.
Although there wasn't much to her role, it's clear that this young up-and-comer was already
getting attention at Netflix, since the first season of Ozark debuted just a few months
after that.
In an interview with The New York Times, Garner explained that she was well aware of her habit
of taking on roles that have to do with cults, saying:
"A journalist once described me as, 'go-to cult girl Julia Garner,' and I thought that
was really funny.
Those are the interesting parts!
Everyone is interested in cults."
That certainly proved to be the case when over a million viewers tuned in to the premiere
episode of Paramount's miniseries Waco, according to numbers compiled by ShowBuzz Daily.
Centered on the infamous standoff between the Branch Davidian cult and the FBI in 1993,
Waco saw Garner take on the role of Michelle Jones, one of the sister-wives to cult leader
David Koresh.
Landing almost a year after the first season of Ozark, Waco gave Garner a chance to practice
a different type of character.
Viewers expecting the no-nonsense hellfire of Ruth instead got a complex portrait of
a woman who was torn between following what she'd been taught to believe in and what her
heart was telling her to do.
Although the six-episode miniseries received mixed reviews, it garnered an Emmy nomination
for supporting actor John Leguizamo, and pushed Garner further into the spotlight as a versatile
talent.
In 2018, Julia Garner ditched her curly locks and appeared in the series premiere of Dirty
John.
Bravo's thrilling true crime series is about a con man named John Meehan who manipulated
multiple women into starting relationships with him, only to attempt to swindle them
out of their money... and worse.
The show follows the horrifying story of the real-life Meehan and one of his victims, Debra
Newell.
As detailed by Harper's Bazaar, Meehan met Newell just two days after being released
from prison, a fact he hid as their relationship developed.
The whole terrifying story came out in a series of articles published by the Los Angeles Times
and a companion podcast.
In the show, Garner plays Debra's youngest daughter Terra, who is suspicious of her mom's
new boyfriend - and later husband - and who is one of the few to see the psychopathic
side lurking underneath Meehan's charming exterior.
Garner co-starred in all eight episodes of the series, alongside Eric Bana and Connie
Britton.
As for what drew her to the role, Garner explained to Bravo:
"As soon as I got the email, I started listening to the podcast.
I read the script.
I listened to the podcast in like one day, just so quick.
[...] It's such a good podcast that I was like, 'wow.'
And the script was amazing, too."
Netflix viewers who tuned into director Cary Joji Fukunaga's trippy mind-bender of a series
Maniac were in for a heck of a ride.
Following Jonah Hill's Owen and Emma Stone's Annie across a dreamlike journey through time
and space, there wasn't a lot of time to stop and take in the scenery.
Essentially, Maniac tracks Owen and Annie as they participate in a bizarre experimental
drug study that somehow links their minds and sends them through a series of shifting
realities.
The more involved they get in the trial, the more it becomes clear that nothing is what
it seems.
"I'm going to kill them if you go."
"What?"
"I'm going to cure them all if you go, Owen, and you'll be the only one who wasn't helped."
Garner took on the pivotal role of Annie's sister, Ellie Landsberg.
It was a role that required her to go from being a regular, happy-go-lucky girl to navigating
a fantasy world as an elven princess.
Yeah, it's the kind of show you have to watch to understand, and even then nothing's guaranteed.
As Fukunaga put it in a candid interview with IndieWire,
"I like actually shifting gears and unsettling audiences and then bringing them back in.
And just kind of making the ride rompus on purpose."
Although she isn't the main character in the series, Ellie serves as the emotional fire
that forges Annie's story, becoming the catalyst for nearly everything Annie does.
"It's time to say goodbye."
"I can't say goodbye to you."
"You have to."
In 2020, Julia Garner stepped away from the small screen for a starring role in the feature
film The Assistant, a drama written and directed by Kitty Green, who also helmed the original
Netflix documentary Casting JonBenet.
In the film, Garner plays Jane, a young woman who gets a job at a film production company
as an executive's assistant.
While it feels like the opportunity of a lifetime at first, Jane soon becomes aware of the culture
of abuse and discrimination that pervades the office.
When she tries to speak up about it, she becomes a target herself.
It's a timely and unflinching look into the very real issue of finding yourself in a toxic
and demeaning workplace, particularly in the film industry.
Considering her roles in productions such as Waco and Dirty John, to name a few, Garner
is clearly no stranger to tackling difficult, real-life issues, and her performance in The
Assistant earned her high praise.
Clearly, Garner is only getting started.
The first two seasons of Ozark firmly established Julia Garner as an acting powerhouse, someone
who could steal a scene even alongside veterans Jason Bateman and Laura Linney.
The fact that she nabbed an Emmy win for her performance in season 2 came as a surprise
to no one, and she's continuing that hot streak with season 3 of the acclaimed series.
While season 2 settled into something of a plateau, the third season gets back to what
made Ozark such a hit in the first place - Marty and Wendy Byrde on a slow descent into destruction.
The season finds Ruth running the Byrdes' riverboat gambling operation, while their
uneasy peace with the Kansas City mob threatens to boil over into violence.
"Things are gonna get ugly here."
So far the show has garnered two Emmy wins and two Golden Globe nominations, and much
like the career of the person portraying fiery Ruth Langmore, it only seems to keep getting
better.
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